Challenging the myths of mindset · 2019-10-09 · Carol Dweck’s ‘growth mindset’ theory, and...

mind, mindset and learning

issue 2 | spring 2018 Impact 41

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Revisiting ‘Growth Mindset’CAROL DWECKLEWIS AND VIRGINIA EATON PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY, STANFORD UNIVERSITY, USA

An extract from an article that first appeared in Education Week on 22nd September 2015. Reprinted with permission from the author.

For many years, I secretly worked on my research. I say ‘secretly’ because, once upon a time, researchers simply published their research in professional journals – and there it stayed. However, my colleagues and I learned things we thought people needed to know. We found that students’ mindsets – how they perceive their abilities – played a key role in their motivation and achievement, and we found that if we changed students’ mindsets, we could

Challenging the myths of mindset

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about a student’s current achievement and then, together, doing something about it, helping him or her become smarter.

My colleagues and I are taking a growth mindset stance towards our message to educators. Maybe we originally put too much emphasis on sheer effort. Maybe we made the development of a growth mindset sound too easy. We are on a growth mindset journey, too.

Mindset theory and practiceSHERRIA HOSKINS, JOANNA NYE, FRANCES WARREN, EMILY MASON-APPS, VICTORIA DEVONSHIRE AND MATHILDE CHANVIN DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF PORTSMOUTH, UK

Growth mindset is often presented as either a fad or a fix-all. It is neither. It is a rational theory with some promising research findings (see, for example, Blackwell et al., 2007; Mangels et al., 2006), but there is much work still to be done. Since 2012, our team has worked with over 400 schools, providing training and conducting research to test the effectiveness of an intervention based on Carol Dweck’s ‘growth mindset’ theory, and we have learned a great deal about common myths and translating growth mindset theory into practice.

Myth 1: ‘Just practise more’One common misinterpretation of growth mindset is the idea that it means ‘you just need to practise more’. Yes, practice and effort are necessary, but not sufficient. Simply telling a child to practise more will be unlikely to have an impact. Interventions for changing mindsets are about increasing children’s motivation by

developing a different belief system about the nature of intelligence.

A growth mindset can make the difference between someone avoiding challenge and failure, and someone embracing it for the sake of learning. Having a growth mindset will not influence learning if that learner is not being given the chance to challenge themselves. If you provide challenges for children, they will make mistakes, and this needs to be supported.

Persistence and effort after challenge and failure need to be meaningful, not just trying the same approach repeatedly (unless it is working). Rather, a learner needs to be taught different strategies to explore and to be encouraged to experiment with them. Teachers do this really well.

Myth 2: ‘You can’t provide positive praise’A clear message that comes from Dweck’s work is that you need to praise effort and achievement, rather than the person or attribute. However, this often gets interpreted as meaning you can’t praise at all, or you can only praise for effort, not for achievement.

The problem with giving praise to a pupil like ‘you are gifted at maths’ is that it implies that their performance is beyond their control. In contrast, if we say ‘you got them all right because you persevered’ or ‘some of these are wrong – looking at the mistakes and having another go will help’, and so on, your praise has provided a sense of control and the clues as to how to overcome challenge – effort, practice and exploring strategies.

Myth 3: ‘Mindsets will affect all pupils the same way’Developing a growth mindset may have more of an impact on academic outcomes for particular children. Why is this? Challenge is necessary for a growth mindset to positively impact learning. For the lower-attaining pupil, it may help them break free from the stereotype of

being a non-learner. In contrast, for the high-attaining pupil, it might prevent them from crumbling at the first sign of a challenge.

We recommend working with pupils openly on growth mindset interventions, giving space to explore each individual’s perspective on it, not simply imposing one-size-fits-all interventions that are ‘done to’ pupils.

Mindset and musicDANIEL MÜLLENSIEFEN, PETER HARRISON AND FRANCESCO CAPRINIDEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY, GOLDSMITHS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON, UK

AMY FANCOURT HEAD OF PSYCHOLOGY, QUEEN ANNE’S SCHOOL, READING, UK

This article is based on an original research article published in Frontiers in Education (Müllensiefen et al., 2015).

Theories of intelligence and academic performanceDespite theories of intelligence being uncorrelated with general cognitive ability (Dweck et al., 1995; c.f. Robins and Pals, 2002), theories of intelligence do appear to reliably predict academic performance in students, especially when the learning environment is a challenging one (Henderson and Dweck, 1990; Dweck and Sorich, 1999; Robins and Pals, 2002). One important contributing factor to this is how children respond to failure. Some adolescents attribute their failures to a lack of ability, and therefore view the difficulty as insurmountable. In order to avoid further failure, they stop investing effort in the task. Diener and Dweck (1980) termed this reaction ‘the helpless response pattern’. In contrast, some adolescents exhibit a mastery-oriented pattern (Diener and Dweck, 1980), where they see failure as a challenge to be overcome by hard work.

The causes of these different behaviour patterns in response to failure are assumed

boost their achievement. More precisely, students who believed their intelligence could be developed (a growth mindset) outperformed those who believed their intelligence was fixed (a fixed mindset). And when students learned through a structured programme that they could ‘grow their brains’ and increase their intellectual abilities, they did better. Finally, we found that having children focus on the process that leads to learning (like hard work or trying new strategies) could foster a growth mindset and its benefits. So a few years back, I published my book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (Dweck, 2007) to share these discoveries with educators. And many educators have applied the mindset principles in spectacular ways with tremendously gratifying results.

This is wonderful, but as we’ve watched the growth mindset become more popular, we’ve become much wiser about how to implement it. Perhaps the most common misconception is simply equating the growth mindset with effort. Certainly, effort is key for students’ achievement, but it’s not the only thing. Students need to try new strategies and seek input from others when they’re stuck. They need this repertoire of approaches – not just sheer effort – to learn and improve. We also need to remember that effort is a means to an end to the goal of learning and improving. Too often nowadays, praise is given to students who are putting forth effort, but not learning, in order to make them feel good in the moment: ‘Great effort! You tried your best!’ It’s good that the students tried, but it’s not good that they’re not

learning. The growth mindset approach helps children feel good in the short and long terms, by helping them thrive on challenges and setbacks on their way to learning. When they’re stuck, teachers can appreciate their work so far, but add: ‘Let’s talk about what you’ve tried, and what you can try next.’

Recently, someone asked what keeps me up at night. It’s the fear that the mindset concepts, which grew up to counter the failed self-esteem movement, will be used to perpetuate that movement. In other words, if you want to make students feel good, even if they’re not learning, just praise their effort! Want to hide learning gaps from them? Just tell them, ‘Everyone is smart!’ The growth mindset was intended to help close achievement gaps, not hide them. It is about telling the truth

A growth mindset can make the difference between someone avoiding challenge and failure, and someone embracing it for the sake of learning

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to be rooted in the students’ theories of intelligence (Hong et al., 1999). Students who believe that intelligence is malleable (incremental theorists, those with a ‘growth mindset’) are more likely to attribute poor performance to effort rather than ability, and are more likely to take remedial action to improve their performance as a result (Hong et al., 1999). They enter academic situations with learning goals, meaning that they prioritise their own intellectual development over how intelligent they appear to others (Elliott and Dweck, 1988; Robins and Pals, 2002). Incremental theorists therefore tend to be mastery-oriented.

In contrast, students who believe that intelligence is fixed (entity theorists, those with a ‘fixed mindset’) are more likely to attribute poor performance to a lack of ability, and are less likely to respond to poor performance by increasing effort (Hong et al., 1999). They enter

academic situations with performance goals, prioritising positive assessments over learning and avoiding challenging situations where their ability might be tested (Elliott and Dweck, 1988; Robins and Pals, 2002). When they do meet with failure, it has a strong negative effect on their academic self-concept. Possessing an entity theory of intelligence therefore leads to helpless behaviour.

Theories of intelligence and musical talentThe relationships between students’ academic development, their motivational patterns and their theories of intelligence are well understood. Less explored, however, is the way in which these relationships might extend to musical development. Learning to play a musical instrument is a challenging task that relies heavily on the student’s autonomous motivation; mastery-oriented behaviour may therefore be particularly important for successful musical development. If

academic mastery-oriented behaviour is fostered by an incremental theory of intelligence, it may be that in an analogous fashion, musical mastery-oriented behaviour may be fostered by an incremental theory, or ‘growth mindset’, of musical ability.

We are currently undertaking a longitudinal study (Müllensiefen et al., 2015) that aims to investigate to what degree beliefs about the nature of intelligence and about the nature of musical ability are related to each other, and how both of these beliefs might be connected to academic and musical development and performance. This article introduces two short self-report measures, termed ‘Academic Self-Theories and Goals’ and ‘Musical Self-Theories and Goals’, closely modelled on validated measures for self-theories in academic scenarios, which we developed for use in the study.

Academic self-theories and goalsThe Academic Self-Theories and Goals questionnaire is produced by combining two short scales from Dweck (2000): the Implicit Theories of Intelligence Scale for Children – Self Form (short version) and the Goal Choice scale. Both scales have received experimental validation by a number of studies (e.g. Dweck et al., 1995; Dweck, 2000). As explained above, they measure the degree to which an individual believes that intelligence is fixed and unchangeable (entity theory of intelligence) or can be improved through hard work (incremental theory of intelligence). The Goal Choice scale measures the desire to succeed at tasks and demonstrate one’s own ability (performance goals) and the desire to improve one’s ability through taking on challenging tasks (learning goals). Motivation to work hard at school derives significantly from both of these types of goals in most individuals (Dweck, 2000).

The questions from the two scales are interleaved (see Table 1 for the complete question set). For six of the questions, participants respond on a six-point Likert

No. Question Scale Response options

Scoring

1 You have a certain amount of intelligence, and you really can’t do much to change it.

Theory of Intelligence

6-level Likert item, agreement/disagreement

Positive

2 If I knew I wasn’t going to do well at a task, I probably wouldn’t do it even if I might learn a lot from it.

Academic Goals


Positive

3 Your intelligence is something about you that you can’t change very much.



Positive

4 Although I hate to admit it, I sometimes would rather do well in a class than learn a lot.

Academic Goals


Positive

5 It’s much more important for me to learn things in my class than it is to get the best grades.

Academic Goals


Negative

6 You can learn new things, but you can’t really change your basic intelligence.



Positive

7 If I had to choose between getting a good grade and being challenged in class, I would choose...

Academic Goals

Binary choice

No. Question Scale Response options

Scoring

1 You have a certain amount of musicality and you really can’t do much to change it.

Theory of Musical Ability

6-level Likert item, agreement/

disagreement; NA option

Positive

2 If I knew I wasn’t going to do well at a musical activity, I probably wouldn’t do it even if I might learn a lot from it.

Goal Choice 6-level Likert item, agreement/


Positive

3 People are born with very different amounts of musical talent, and practice does little to change that.




Positive

4 Although I hate to admit it, I sometimes would rather do well in music exams than get better at music itself.



Positive

5 It’s much more important for me to develop my musical skills than to get recognised for my musical skills.



Negative

6 Musical success depends more on your innate talents than on how much practice you do.



Positive

7 If I had to choose between performing easy music that I know I can do well or performing music that challenges me, I would choose…

Goal Choice Binary choice;

no NA optionTABLE 1 : THE ACADEMIC SELF-THEORIES AND GOALS QUESTIONNAIRE

TABLE 2: THE MUSICAL SELF-THEORIES AND GOALS QUESTIONNAIRE

scale; for the seventh question, the response option is binary. The two scales are scored independently, so each participant receives a Theory of Intelligence score and a Goal Choice score. High Theory of Intelligence scores (4–7) correspond to an entity theory of intelligence, while low scores (1–3) correspond to an incremental theory of intelligence; high Goal Choice scores (4–7) correspond to performance-goal orientation, whereas low Goal Choice scores (1–3) correspond to learning-goal orientation.

Musical self-theories and goals

The Musical Self-Theories and Goals questionnaire, meanwhile, is the prototype for a new scale that assesses the participants’ attitudes to the development of musical ability. Given that academic development is demonstrably influenced by students’ theories of intelligence and their goal orientation (Dweck, 2000), the Musical Self-Theories and Goals questionnaire is constructed to assess two hypothetical analogous attitudes towards the development of musical ability.

Firstly, the Theory of Musical Ability scale measures the belief that musical ability is fixed and unchangeable; this belief is termed an entity theory of musical ability. Alternatively, one

Musical mastery oriented behaviour may be fostered by an incremental theory, or ‘growth mindset’, of musical ability

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REFERENCES

Blackwell LS, Trzesniewski KH and Dweck CS (2007) Implicit theories of intelligence predict achievement across an adolescent transition: A longitudinal study and an intervention. Child Development 78(1): 246–263.

Boyle JD and Radocy RE (1987) Measurement and Evaluation of Musical Experiences. New York, NY: Schirmer Books.

Diener CI and Dweck CS (1980) An analysis of learned helplessness: II. The processing of success. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 39: 940–952.

Dweck CS (2000) Self-theories: Their Role in Motivation, Personality, and Development. Philadelphia: Psychology Press.

Dweck CS (2007) Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York: Ballantine Books.

Dweck CS (2015) Carol Dweck

revisits the ‘Growth Mindset’. Education Week 35(5): 20–24.

Dweck CS and Sorich LA (1999) Mastery-oriented thinking. In: Snyder CR (ed) Coping: The Psychology of What Works. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, pp. 232–251.

Dweck CS, Chiu C and Hong Y (1995) Implicit theories and their role in judgments and reactions: A word from two perspectives. Psychological Inquiry 6: 267–285.

Elliott ES and Dweck CS (1988) Goals: An approach to motivation and achievement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 54: 5–12.

Henderson V and Dweck CS (1990) Achievement and motivation in adolescence: A new model and data. In: Feldman S (ed) At the Threshold: The Developing Adolescent. Cambridge: Harvard

University Press, pp. 308–329.

Hong Y, Chiu C, Dweck CS et al. (1999) Implicit theories, attributions, and coping: A meaning system approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 77: 588–599.

Mangels JA, Butterfield B, Lamb J et al. (2006) Why do beliefs about intelligence influence learning success? A social cognitive neuroscience model. SCAN I: 75–86.

Müllensiefen D, Harrison P, Caprini F et al. (2015) Investigating the importance of self-theories of intelligence and musicality for students’ academic and musical achievement. Frontiers in Psychology 6: 1702.

Robins RW and Pals JL (2002) Implicit self-theories in the academic domain: Implications for goal orientation, attributions, affect, and self-esteem change. Self Identity 1: 313–336.

might believe that musical ability can be significantly improved through hard work; this belief is termed an incremental theory of musical ability. Secondly, the Musical Goals scale measures the degree to which musical engagement is motivated by the two following goals: the desire to succeed at tasks and demonstrate one’s own ability (performance goals) and the desire to improve one’s ability through taking on challenging tasks (learning goals).

Because the Musical Self-Theories and Goals questionnaire is intended to measure hypothetical constructs that are very similar to those measured by the Academic Self-Theories and Goals questionnaire, its questions are modelled closely on those of the latter, with academic terms being substituted for musical terms. However, this substitution process was not entirely trivial. In the case of assessing an individual’s theory of intelligence, the term ‘intelligence’ is widely understood by adults and young children as denoting an individual’s cognitive abilities, but it is a term that bears little presumption about whether these cognitive abilities are innate or learned. Finding an analogous and well-understood term for the musical domain is more difficult.

‘Musical talent’ is a well-understood term, but it implies a musical capacity that is innate, and likewise, ‘musical ability’ is well-understood, but it implies an acquired musical capacity (Boyle and Radocy, 1987). Instead of relying on one particular term to denote musical capacities, therefore, the Musical Self-Theories and Goals questionnaire makes use of a variety of idiomatic terms that ought to be well-understood by children and adults.

Likewise, constructing a Musical Goals scale on the basis of the Academic Goals scale required a few changes to account for the different types of goals involved in musical and academic study. Unlike in the academic sphere, where performing well in exams is not necessarily the same as possessing a high academic ability, performing music well is arguably the

definition of being a good musician. In the Musical Self-Theories and Goals questionnaire, therefore, the Goal Choice scale focuses less on musical performance itself and more on how the individual’s musical abilities are recognised by others. The scale items can be found in Table 2.

The Musical Self-Theories and Goals questionnaire is scored similarly to the Academic Self-Theories and Goals questionnaire: each participant receives a Theory of Musical Ability score and a Goal Choice score. These scores are arrived at by reversing negative items and averaging individual item scores. Analogously to the Academic Self-Theories and Goals questionnaire, high Theory of Musical Ability scores (4–7) correspond

to an entity theory of musical ability, while low scores (1–3) correspond to an incremental theory of musical ability; high Goal Choice scores (4–7) correspond to performance-goal orientation, whereas low Goal Choice scores (1–3) correspond to learning-goal orientation.

Future directionThe longitudinal study will take repeated measurements of cognitive, social and musical abilities, as well as academic performance, on the same secondary school children over five years, enabling us to explore the co-development of musical competencies, intelligence, social skills, self-concepts and beliefs. The research study, as well as any potential interventions that deliberately intend to change musical self-theories, will seek to broaden our understanding of the nature and development of personality and musical abilities through adolescence and how these relate to academic motivation, effort and achievement.

One might believe that musical ability can be significantly improved through hard work; this belief is termed an incremental theory of musical ability

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